Chapter 12 - THE SECOND FIRE
The bullet struck Lena’s body armor and knocked her across the room.
I pushed the hospital bed toward Shaw.
It slammed into his knees.
Nathan and the bed crashed to the floor while I ran for Lena’s gun.
Shaw caught my ankle.
I kicked him in the face, grabbed the weapon, and fired.
The bullet hit his shoulder.
He disappeared through the stairwell door.
Lena forced herself upright.
“Deletion?”
The screen showed thirty-eight seconds.
She returned to the computer.
Nathan pointed at a black device taped beneath the desk.
“Bomb.”
The timer reached twenty seconds.
Lena ripped the federal drive free. “Run!”
We dragged Nathan into the stairwell.
The explosion threw us down half a flight.
Fire rolled through the upper floor. Sprinklers activated, but the flames spread too quickly.
Shaw had used an accelerant.
Again.
Smoke filled the stairs.
My body remembered before my mind did.
The lake house ceiling collapsing.
My skin burning.
Juliette walking away.
I froze.
“Caroline!” Lena shouted.
I couldn’t move.
Then Nathan grabbed my hand.
“You’re not in that house anymore.”
I looked at him.
“You’re here,” he said. “And you’re getting out.”
We descended through smoke and broken glass.
On the twenty-third floor, the stairwell door was chained from the other side.
Lena shot the lock.
Employees crowded in the hallway, trapped by the disabled elevators.
We could save ourselves or help them.
Five years earlier, people had chosen money over my life.
I refused to become them.
“This way!” I shouted.
We led more than forty people down the emergency stairs.
By the time we reached the lobby, firefighters had surrounded the building.
Nathan was taken into custody and then rushed to a hospital.
Lena had recovered most of the records before the explosion.
But not the master ledger.
Shaw still had the hard drive.
Juliette still had the password.
“They’re working together,” I said.
“Not anymore,” Lena replied.
Security footage showed Shaw leaving with the hard drive.
Three minutes later, Juliette followed him.
She carried a gun.
Marcus called with another discovery.
Owen Price had regained consciousness. He remembered where Shaw took me after the lake-house fire.
Not directly to Briarwood.
First, Shaw brought me to Mercer Development’s private airfield.
Flight records showed the company jet had made several unexplained trips to Canada.
One trip occurred the day my mother died.
Another occurred the night of the fire.
A third flight was scheduled for that evening.
Destination: Toronto.
Passenger manifest: Douglas Mercer, Caroline Mercer, and Juliette Mercer.
Someone had added all three of our names.
Dad was still in surgery.
I was in federal custody.
That left one person using our identities.
Marcus enlarged the pilot’s authorization form.
It carried Nathan’s signature.
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Nathan had not been Juliette’s victim.
He had been planning their escape from the beginning.
